Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Sunday, May 24, 2009

It was my birthday on Thursday; a rather auspicious one and it turned out to be an absolute beauty. Look what came through the door from my amazing sister. If I could have flowers every day, I'd have peonies in every single colour. They even smell, I didn't realise.Here, bury your nose in this. Pinkness incarnate.There was chocolate cake made by Clarries fair hands at 8am with pains au chocolat and Zebedee.Then on Friday afternoon after a LOT of excitement we set off for a romantic weekend away in Suffolk to Butley Priory. Secluded, magical and so romantic. My darling Ricardo had booked the pink room. Please, if you are envious of the star that is Ricado, we are working on having him cloned; you can put your orders in here if you like.There was a bottle of champagne in the room when we got there with 6 red roses. (I'd forgotten it was our 6 year anniversary as well). He had organised a masseuse to come to the room too. It's been soooo long since I had a massage that I'd forgotten how good it can be, I hope she managed to get the dribble out of the pillow!The weather was unbelievably glorious. Waking up in the 7ft bed with the only sound being a bluetit feeding it's babies outside the window was heaven....only to be out done by hearing a nightingale when we came back from dinner at 11.15 pm on Friday night. I've wanted to hear one ever since I came to this green and pleasant land.Look at that cloudless sky.There was a grand piano too, here's Ricardo playing it.There was a beautiful view out this windowIf you click on the picture you'll be able to see a swing in the trees off to the right. Honestly it was heaven on a stick. Complete with cute dog too called Lilly.We went for a really long walk along overgrown footpaths smelling of Hawthorn blossom, over Burrow hill across the river Butley (thanks to the volunteer ferry man) and on to Orford for lunch at the Jolly sailor Inn. The sunny weather made it the most idyllic walk. Has there ever been a Bank holiday weekend like it?How's this for a picnic spot?On our way back home after the most relaxing weekend we dropped in to the tiny village of Kelsale where Richard grew up and a lot of Ludbrook's are buried. The Church has this beautiful Arts and Crafts period Lych gate.Richard's Grandmother was buried here but it was hard to find her plot as she'd been denied a headstone on account of being a deserted wife! We found where we thought she was and gave her the roses to say thankyou.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Monday, May 18, 2009

Kellypuffs has delivered a challenge and I'm rising to it.She asks for pictures of where you work...Luckily at the moment I have something interesting on my work table, not just some boring old curtains (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's the beginnings of a banner for East Harling Church. Designed by Maz JacksonNeed more storage please.My fabulous long table that Ricardo made for me. Never quite big enough either though.My trusty sewing machine and the thing I couldn't work without....the radio; small and really crappy, but all I need to take me to lands far & wide.Oh yes and there is this headress I whipped up the other night to go to the Speigel tent in Norwich.Oh alright here I am in it.

Monday, May 11, 2009

I finished a stole today that is to go to Australia for a friend of a friend.The woman it's for is studying to be an interfaith minister and wanted a motif that would transcend and combine all religions. We decided on a lotus as she has one tattooed on the back of her neck. I think it worked out alright.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

What more could you wish for on a calm & warm spring evening than an outing to an ancient thatched Church with an octagonal tower, packed to the rafters with 300 people all keen as mustard to be there to witness the induction of their new Vicar. The Right Reverend David Hill. There was fanfare; in a new piece of choral music written especially for the evening; there was ritual with all the Churchwardens waiting beside the Bishop with their crooks; and there was David's face beaming like a polished apple.

Then there was the tea afterwards!!! More sausage rolls than you could poke a crook at.

Thanks to Gudrun for the photoNext time I go, I must try & find this window it depicts the story of the Good Samaritan, the figure of the injured man in the middle is a reverse depiction of Michaelangelo's Adam - except that, this being late 19th century rural Norfolk, he is wearing a pair of underpants.Thanks again to the Norfolk Churches website for their invaluable information

Monday, May 04, 2009

Yesterday was a Bank holiday here in the UK and our Norwich Diocesan Association of Bellringers (the southern branch mind you) went on a coach outing to some weird and wonderful Churches in North Norfolk. Don't you just love the dagginess of a coach where you can see for miles over the hedges and sit up the back with your buddy for hours on end without the worry of driving.The first of the five Churches we visited was at Beetley. Here's a picture of it's graveyardwith a beautiful flowering cherry. Lush, green and bloody freezing. It's been warm for a week and we're all unused to it being cold again.I leapt in to ring here and found I was in over my head as they were 8 tiny bells and hard to hold up.Next it was off to Walsingham where there was a procession going on. You don't get to see this kind of occurence very often, even in the back blocks of Norfolk.We had lunch in Walsingham and then moved on to Wighton, a tiny village near the sea approached by narrow hedge lined lanes. One winter night in 1965, the bell tower collapsed in a storm and you can see the tide mark where new stone replaces old.This pretty doorway was surrounded by wallflowers which smelled like Chanel no 5.There were lots of lambs all in amongst the grave stones. A great way of keeping the grass down in your local Church.There was a rather lovely altar cloth here with frayed, padded gold work. I'm not quite sure what this fantasy flower is.Great headstones, the skull and cross bones usually denotes death by plague.Wells-next-the-sea was next. It had this beautiful plaque on the wall....and a comedy eagle.Next and last came Holkham church St Withburga's!!! In magnificent surroundings, here's Ricardo looking over the fence at Holkham Hall.There's a famous tomb here where the relief shows the nine daughters and six sons of the woman within!Got to publish this now, even though there's heaps more I could tell you. Work is calling.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

From the sublime to the ..... sublime.It's been the most amazing weather here. Rarely do we get a Spring like this, it's been warm all week. The air is scented with lilac and cow parsley.Yesterday I took the day off with my buddy Sheila Macdonald and we went to Cambridge for a "Jolly" as Sheila says in her lovely Scottish accent.We found our way to Granchester and found paradise at the Orchard tea garden. Often these places of renown are not as good in the flesh as you had imagined but not yesterday.As I took this photo a sweet old guy shuffled out of my view apologising profusely. We asked if he would join us for a cup of tea and Paul from Michigan proceeded to tell us his life story. We flopped on the sun on our deck chairs as a blackbird pecked around us at the crumbs from my Victoria sponge.The weather has been so warm & still that the blossom has hardly fallen from the trees.If you can get there, take the dominos and GO.Is there anywhere else in the world where you'd see a bloke in a boater (that's not in a jazz band) walking past wisteria like this?

About Me

I started this blog when I moved to the UK with my husband Ricardo the Magnificent. After losing him to liver cancer in 2010 I decided to move back to my home town in Melbourne, Australia.
As political philosopher Thomas Paine would declare, "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren and to do good is my religion".